Public Statements

Issue Position: Church & State

Issue Position

Nowhere in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence will you see the phrase "separation of church and state." Yet in our modern society, we are taught this from a very young age; that Church and State don't belong together. Many will often quote the 1st amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," and use this as their basis for the separation argument.

But it continues and says: "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" However, religion has an important role to play not only in our government, but also in our nation. As John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." When a people are free from the over-bearing, and encroaching powers of federal, national, state or local government, that doesn't mean they are free from government. For the more freedom we have from those government bureaucracies, the more responsibility is placed on ourselves to be self-governed.

All people must have government to let them know what can and can't be done. But the Founders left the choice to us: govern yourselves and control your own actions, or have your actions be controlled by others. And it is religion that provides people with that inner compass, morality, and a conscience to determine what is right and wrong, and in so doing to be self-governed.

Alexis de Tocqueville came to the shores of America searching for what made it so great and is quoted as saying: "I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers- and it was not there in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there in her rich mines and her vast world commerce- and it was not there in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution- and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good. She will cease to be great."

Amendment 1 of the Bill of Rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;